What is meant by “bankable cover” and in what circumstances does it apply?
In 2001, the seven teachers’ unions reached an agreement with the employers’ organisation, NEOST, and published joint guidance called New Flexibilities on Cover. This agreement must be seen in the context of the acute shortage of teachers in many areas and the parallel shortage of those wanting to do supply work. While it is true that the School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document provides that teachers may be called upon to cover outside the normal requirements, when all efforts to find supply teachers have proved fruitless, the unions and the employers agreed that flexibility by teachers should be matched by a concession from the employers.
Hence the invention of “bankable cover”, meaning that when a teacher was called upon to do cover outside contractual requirements, the time so spent would be “banked” and repaid at a later date as time off, preferably in whole or half-days.
